We never see a tree except through the image that we have of it, the concept of that tree; but the concept, the knowledge, the experience, is entirely different from the actual tree. Look at a tree and you will find how extraordinarily difficult it is to see it completely, so that no image, no screen, comes between the seeing and the actual fact. By completely I mean with the totality of your mind and heart, not a fragment of it.

But if you have no relationship with the living things on this earth, you may lose whatever relationship you have with humanity.

If we try to listen we find it extraordinarily difficult, because we are always projecting our opinions and ideas, our prejudices, our background, our inclinations, our impulses; when they dominate, we hardly listen at all to what is being said...One listens and therefore learns, only in a state of silence, in which this whole background is in abeyance, is quite; then, it seems to me, it is possible to communicate

Meditation is the process of understanding your own mind.

There are two kinds of freedom: one is the freedom from something, which is a reaction; and the other is not a reaction, it is "being free."

You cannot prevent a man getting drunk if he wishes to do so, but when he becomes a nuisance, then you interfere.

The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.